


Snowball Season

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Multi, ft. the captain americas, snowball fight!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8866828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: Written for an All Caps fic swap!!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bopeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bopeep/gifts).



It’s snowing outside, and Bucky’s pressed against the window like a small child, watching the flakes fall. Winter is a mixed blessing for him, now. It’s hard to separate the good and bad, real and tricks, from the memories in his head, and every story he’s experienced has warped and changed with time. But he remembers Steve, and Brooklyn winters. and warm fires in the fireplace, and Sarah Rogers’s endless kindness for her boys.

And snowball fights. He remembers those. Cold winter dripping down his back or exploding in his face and people’s laughter, dancing through his head in colorful lines. He remembers building the white powder into forts or a throne, once, or creating snow-people who would more often than not be wrapped in Sarah Rogers’s hand-knitted scarves.

 

Once, sometime around Christmas, some bullies from out of town had stolen a scarf and kicked the snow-woman who wore it into slush. Steve and Bucky had been so distraught on Sarah’s behalf that they’d attempted to make another one for her. It had turned into a burgundy tangle of yarn, since Steve and Bucky were both too young to know how to knit at the time, but Sarah had loved it. She was even buried wearing it, years later, but Bucky doesn’t want to think of that.

“Hey, Buck,” says Steve, coming up behind him and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Watching the snow fall?”

Bucky jumps at the sudden physical contact. Then, clenching his non-metal fist, he forces himself to relax and slow his heartbeat down to normal. “You’re awake,” he says. “Morning.”

Steve can immediately tell it’s not one of Bucky better days and takes a half-step back, a gesture Bucky appreciates more than words can say. “Morning to you, too. Want some coffee?”

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

It’s very polite, like he’s talking to a stranger, but Steve doesn’t comment on it. He goes to the kitchen to make some morning coffee, and soon the typical sounds of morning drift across to Bucky’s ears. He turns back to the window, continuing to watch the snow. “Do you remember it?” he asks the air.

Steve hears, of course. He and Bucky often communicate like this, with Bucky speaking to nobody in particular but Steve still catching every word. With their enhanced hearing, they don’t need to be in the same room to talk, and physical proximity for Bucky is often unbearable.

“Of course I do,” Steve replies. “The snow. Remember when Mom would take us to Christmas parties at the church and you’d gripe and moan and eat  _ all _ the food at the banquet after and-”

“Don’t remind me!” Bucky starts to smile. “I was such a little shit.”

“Was? Are!”

Bucky’s smile widens and he joins Steve in the kitchen. “There’s only one thing to do with all this snow, you know,” he says, almost approaching Steve but still holding back.

“Snowball fight,” Steve guesses, turning to Bucky, who’s standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. “You wanna?”

“After coffee, please,” Bucky says quietly. “If-”

“Of course.”

Steve pours the coffee grounds into the disposal. Bucky quickly backpedals into the dining room as Steve turns it on, sending the ugly grinding sound throughout the kitchen. When the sound has finished echoing, he returns, pretending he never left. “Do you want to call Sam?” he asks, false-nonchalantly.

Steve nods, surprised. “If you want to.”

“The more the merrier.” Bucky tries to smile. He likes Sam, he really does, but most of all, he wants to get used to being treated as a person, not as a fragile vase or murder weapon. Natasha cares about him too, but she’s wary, and Bucky still doesn’t know how to apologize for the two bullet wounds on her body. So Sam it is.

Steve dials him on his cell phone, and he picks up on the second ring. “What’s goin’ on, man?” Sam asks. “Snowed-in yet?”   
  
Steve laughs. “Not yet, but at this rate, soon. You?”

“I’m alright over here. Getting out of DC is nice, for a change, and Brooklyn isn’t half-bad.”

Sam is staying in Brooklyn for Christmas, nearby his relatives that live in Queens. 

“Isn’t half bad?” Steve’s voice turns mock-offended. “It’s only the best area on the planet!”

“And you’re not biased at all.”

“Not biased at all,” Steve affirms, before bursting out laughing. “Hey, do you want to come over? Bucky and I are having a snowball fight.”

“Mmmm,” Sam hums for a second, pretending to consider. 

“Come on! It’ll be fun,” Steve insists.

“Well,” says Sam, still pretend-debating. “I bet you and I could kick Bucky’s ass in a snowball fight. After all, that metal arm can’t be all that useful in the snow, right?”

“Sam, come on,” argues Bucky, who has been eavesdropping on the entire conversation with his super-soldier hearing. “ _ Winter  _ Soldier?”

“Ah, shit. Forgot that little detail. Well, I still bet I could kick your butt.”

“You’re on,” Bucky says, pretending he’s more happy at the prospect of a snowball fight than the opportunity to kick Sam’s butt. Steve turns to him, amused and also happy; he realizes the first time Bucky has referenced his time as the Winter Soldier with a voice mostly-free of self-loathing. So even if it was said to prove Sam wrong, he’ll take it.

“Well, see you soon then, Sam, as I assume that means you’re coming.”

“Damn straight. Or rather, damn gay. I see how you and Bucky look at each other, y’know.”

Steve turns to Bucky in shock and embarrassment, spluttering incoherent denials into the phone. Bucky cracks a smile; Sam’s not wrong.

Before Steve can formulate a response, Sam’s hung up, laughing.

*   *   *

“So, are we ready to go?” Sam asks. He’s wearing an orange-trimmed winter parka, two scarves, and what looks like blue beanie, a look that would flatter nobody but him. Steve’s coat is his leather jacket and Bucky’s is a Captain America sweatshirt; they both insist that they don’t get cold so much anymore. Still, Sam insists they both wear a hat and gloves.

Out they go, to Circle Park, the nearest small green space to Steve’s apartment. The snowfall has lightened and the flakes drifting downward in irregular flurries, but it’s still falling. Steve is the first to make a snowball, and he lobs it right at the back of Sam’s head while he’s making a snowball of his own. Bucky, snorting, packs a giant icy blast and hurls it right at Steve’s chest, throwing it so hard he falls over backwards.

The cold soon flushes their faces as they pack and throw as many snowballs as they can, as quickly as they can. They laugh when it hits who they were aiming at and they laugh even harder when it misses. Or Steve and Sam do, anyway; Bucky is a snowball factory all on his own. His metal arm only throws with perfect trajectory, so he hits Steve and Sam every time. It doesn’t take long for them, though, to gang up on him, throwing snowballs at him as hard and fast as they can until he retreats, laughing, behind a hedge.

He’s breathless from the chill in the air and from running, throwing, and laughing. So he leans slightly back on the plants -- New York hedges are durable -- and takes a short break.

That’s when an entire snowdrift is emptied on his head.

Spluttering, he claws his way back up to it to see Sam and Steve laughing their butts off, clutching each other and just about howling with mirth. “It’s not funny!” Bucky shouts, but he’s laughing, too. The powder all over him soaks through his sweatshirt, though, and, for the first time that day, he starts to become cold.

Sam, ever-perceptive, is the first to notice. “Come on,” he says, unwrapping his scarf. “Pull off that wet sweatshirt and wear this.”

Bucky stares up at him, frozen, his eyes moving slightly back and forth. Sam gives him a funny look. 

“He’s not great at accepting kindness,” Steve says, finally.

Sam nods in a rush of understanding. He comes around the side of the hedge and places a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky doesn’t flinch.

“When I first got back, I couldn’t understand why anyone would be nice to me. I blamed myself for Riley. I blamed myself for everything. And it took me a long time to realize that I was deserving of basic decency. I’m guessing that’s where you’re at, huh?”

Bucky nods and brushes more of the snow off his pants.

“Well, take it from me, and I’m an excellent judge of character. You  _ do _ deserve that. The three of us -- we’re soldiers, man. We’re loyal, and we’ve got each other’s backs. I’ve got your back, too, and God knows I’ve got Steve’s. Alright?” He tilts his head and smiles at Bucky.

Bucky nods and smiles back. He doesn’t reach up to hug Sam, but he lets his hand stay on his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now come out from behind these plants so Steve and I can finish kicking your ass.”

Bucky laughs again. “You wish!”

  
Round two of the snowball fight commences, only ending when Steve and Sam have bundled up Bucky in so many spare winter clothes he can’t even throw right. Finally, cold-warm and laughing-breathless, they call a truce and all tromp back to Steve’s apartment for some hot chocolate. Then they sit and watch the snow fall while sipping. 

“The 21st century isn’t so bad, is it?” Steve asks, nudging Bucky with his shoulder. 

Bucky looks at Sam and Steve and smiles. “Not bad, Steve. Not bad at all.”


End file.
